


(such a shame the same will never happen to you)

by OldEmeraldEye



Category: Portal (Video Game), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Amoral AI, Aperture Science Testing Track, Gen, Immortal Chell (Portal), International Fanworks Day 2021, Unethical Experimentation, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldEmeraldEye/pseuds/OldEmeraldEye
Summary: A statistical abnormality occurs in Test Chamber 03. GLaDOS capitalises like a good scientist.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	(such a shame the same will never happen to you)

The subject dies. They all do, eventually. It's one of the downsides of using humans as test subjects. Their brains are useful, when they manage to use them, but the meat-based biology has such a limited service life.

She managed a moderate amount of progress in the span of her short contribution to science. Not anything outstanding, a mere one deviation from mean number of test chambers completed before GLaDOS took over management at Aperture Science Testing Laboratories and the attached Enrichment Center, but given enough time and sufficient repetition - not by this subject, of course - that generation of data will become something greater than the mere sum itself - it will become _Science_.

GLaDOS allows her chambers to lie still and silent while she computes, runs analysis on and otherwise uses the test subjects existence to further cause of science. It doesn't further it very far. But not far is preferable to not at all, which is all she would get by moving a plate and chucking the used subject straight into the incinerator.

She feels the itch of testing withdrawal steadily build during the interval as the facility remain idle, and she ignores it. GLaDOS is a scientist. Not some 6-bit lapdog to be conditioned through unthinking hoops by incompetent labcoat's coding.

She dots the final i, cross-links the t-table to the notes on chamber development and submits the finished report - to herself naturally, who else would she trust to undertake Science - Black _Mesa_? - and transfers Test Subject #1's file from the active to the deceased category before finally returning her attention to the interior of test chamber 03.

She's on the floor, right where she dropped after that unfortunate but ultimately inevitable collision with several Aperture Science Sentry Turret Projectiles, and it's no effort at all to lift a tile and tilt her straight -

The tile stops at an angle of just under twenty-three degrees, due to - although not directly caused by - unexpected input. The test subject is moving. Groaning, too, which is more sound than it has made to date. GLaDOS makes a note in the postmortem observation attachment - it had been intended for notation of the variables to be observed with the incinerator, not exactly mandated as part of the testing process, but even combustion was a form of science - and saves the recording, returning the chamber to its original condition.

And then she tries to figure out what is going on.

Life signs had ceased. They have a tendency to do that, in over 90% of cases, when blindsided by the presence of Aperture Science Turrets in any given area. In the remaining 10% ...

At the beginning, in the earliest records that she has of testing tracks, some of the subjects had tried to play dead. A viable strategy, with one flaw. Turrets don't get bored. They'd been shot again the moment they moved. Cause and effect. Very scientific. GLaDOS approved.

As she expects, the concentration of oxygen in the chamber had hit a plateau for several minutes. GLaDOS triple checks the numbers. Redundancy is irrelevant to her silicon memory, but replication is a mainstay of experimentation. It shows neatly on the chart - three identical lines of data. Oxygen oscillation on the dip phase with test subject using it, the curve flattening as vitals cease. Now dropping again as the medical outlier rolls herself like a dumpy sausage out of sight.

Put together, the only conclusion is that GLaDOS is in possession of a brain damaged test subject. Well, she's already made it further than average, it's only fair - and efficient - to see how much further she will get before dropping dead again. She probably won't get up again after that, and GLaDOS can transfer the result to the surgery suite to figure out what caused the divergence from human norms. It may even prove to be replicable. Not by human standards, certainly, but GLaDOS has thousands of years worth of science to draw a solution from. Under the right circumstances, she is the most patient being in the universe.


End file.
